IN PARIS, Shanghai and Berlin, Lord Richard Rogers's designs have swept him to the top of his profession.

Famous for the Paris Centre Pompidou, the futuristic Lloyd's of London building and designing the Millennium Dome, the 68-year-old architect is feted by rich companies, governments and powerful municipalities.

But Rogers is shaping the masterplan for what is Britain's biggest housing and urban regeneration project. Up to 20,000 homes in east London and Essex are to be built over the next 10 years with new schools, offices and factories. Rogers is effectively shaping the birth of two new mini-towns with a combined population of 60,000 people over an area covering 445 acres.

It comes as the decline in east London plumbed new depths last week following the end of 70 years of car manufacturing at the Ford factory in Dagenham and the loss of 1,100 jobs. The region has the lowest land values in London but the highest levels of unemployment.

The project is still in its infancy. But already £50 million has been spent decontaminating vast swathes of land. Four urban design practices, three from the Netherlands, have been appointed to sketch out ideas on an 80-acre section of the area.

Rogers has been commissioned by London Mayor Ken Livingstone to implement the latest urban policies geared towards quality high density, sustainable housing. He is working two days a week for Livingstone and paid a daily rate of £1,600 - thought to be just under half his practice's normal charge.

'You can look at Richard Rogers as having this glitzy reputation. But this is him getting down and dirty in Barking and Dagenham,' said Richard Brown who is working closely with Rogers at the Greater London Authority. 'He is putting into practice a set of theories he has developed over his career.'

'This area is a massive policy laboratory,' said Cruddas. 'It's exciting but enormously complex.'

Rogers is helping to push for improved transport links for east London. Plans are well advanced to build new Thames river crossings, a Docklands Light railway extension and a tram system together with road improvements to the A13 arterial road.

But most important is the possible extension of the Crossrail train link from Heathrow airport in the west through the City of London, and then splitting north to Canary Wharf and south along the north bank of the Thames through Essex and Kent.

Livingstone is frantically lobbying the Government to get the go-ahead for this route. Rogers and Livingstone believes it will open up the district and act as a catalyst for levering in billions of pounds of private sector investment.

'The extension is a once in a lifetime chance to bring prosperity to a desperately deprived area,' said a Livingstone adviser. 'London is growing. We anticipate one million more people within 15 years. But there's no space left.'

Critics of Rogers say that he is yesterday's man when it comes to urban regeneration. And that younger architects like Will Allsop, who designed the award-winning Peckham library in London, represents the future.